Sunday, September 10, 2017

HWA's Promotion of Dangerous "Faith Healing" (1958)

One of the very worst things HWA and his imitators did over the years was to tell their followers that visiting doctors and taking medicines was sinful and forbidden by (HWA's) God. Many people suffered and even died because of this doctrine of death. But despite saying such things in his later life HWA hypocritically employed a personal doctor to heal from illnesses and sicknesses.

The following is from the February 1958 issue of the Radio COG's recruitment magazine, The Plain Truth (p. 2).

The editors of this issue were Herbert Armstrong. Herman Hoeh, Roderick Meredith and Garner Ted Armstrong.

“I had an awful pain in both my legs
for a long time. After I received the
cloth from you I put it on them and
prayed. My legs are alright again and I
thank God for healing them. Thank you
for helping me to find out that there is
no one that can heal except God. I am
thanking God for His blessings and for
healing me. I have now paid out more
than $5,000.00 to different doctors, beside
that for medicine. I became no better
than I was at first. Now I know a
Great Doctor that can heal all kinds of
sickness. I don’t have to give Him money
and I don’t have to take pills. This
Doctor’s name is Jesus Christ.”

Woman from Mart, Texas

Editor’s note: Yes, only God heals!

Healed of Ulcers and Gallstones

“Here is good news, I have been
healed of ulcers since I was baptized.
And a while back I was also healed of
gallstones. The latter happened when I
first started receiving the Plain Truth.”

Woman from Seiad Valley, California

Quick Answers

“I wish to thank you for your prayers
in my behalf and the anointed cloth I
received just recently. It is a great joy
to be able to report to you that the condition
for which I requested prayer was
corrected even before I had time to receive
the cloth. I nevertheless followed
your instructions sent with the cloth,
and thanks be to God and you for what
you both have done and continue to do.”

Man from Atmore, Alabama

“Dear Mr. Armstrong:

“My little girl is very sick with flu and
I want you to send an anointed cloth for
her. The Lord God was so good to heal
me of rheumatism last year when I sent
to you for a prayer cloth. Somehow I’ve
neglected to tell you of it. The healing
wasn’t all at once but came gradually
and was completed. I’m so thankful for it
and I thank God for His faithful servants
and make mention of you always in
my prayers.”

Woman from Carthage, MississippiAnointed Cloth Received

“Here is something I have to tell you.
Nearly five years ago I suffered with
hemorrhoid-piles. I wrote to you to send
me an anointed cloth and asked you to
pray for me. You sent it and I prayed to
God and was healed. I have been praising
and thanking God ever since and I
tell people that are sick about you and
how I was healed. I put all my faith in
this prayer.”

Woman from Chidester, Arkansas

A Miracle from God

“I want to write and tell you how
much I appreciate your last magazine
containing your message on faith. I read
it while I was in the hospital. I’m afraid
I never would have known how to have
the faith to get healed.

“On Monday night when we received
your letter with the anointed handkerchief
I was seriously ill. But thank God
when I placed the handkerchief on my
body, God immediately stopped all
pain-I started moving my leg, then I
came out of that hospital bed and began
walking. The first I had been able to
walk in five weeks. Thank God the doctors
and nurses knew a miracle had happened. The following Friday I came
home.

“I was left with a nervous condition,
but thank God I have had Faith and
prayed to God and He has healed that.

“I want to thank you again for your
prayers. I know God worked through
you, my faith and my husbands faith.
That is the reason for my healing.”

Woman from West Blocton, Alabama

Healed in Two Days

“I received your prayer cloth. I had
hemorrhoid-piles and was in so much
pain that my husband said that I had
to go and be operated on. I told him I
wouldn’t go. I took the prayer cloth and
prayed with all my heart and believed
God would help me. In two days all the
pain left and it hasn’t returned. I was
so thankful to God.

“Since then I sprained my back and
surely am in pain so that I can hardly
walk. I want to get better so that I can
do my house work. Please send me
another cloth.”

Woman from Indiana, PennsylvaniaPain Eased When the
Anointed Cloth was Mailed

“I want to let you know that God
answered your prayer of faith, and
healed me. The terrible pain started to
ease up, the first time in six months, the
day that you mailed the anointed cloth
to me. I received it four days later, and
the next morning I could walk up and
down stairs as well as I ever could, with
just a slight amount of pain. Each day
it grows less and less.

“Thank you Mr. Armstrong, for all
you have done for me. Not only teaching
me of God’s wonderful gift of healing,
but His wishes regarding our physical
sickness or sin. I believe that is the
reason for my suffering. I have read the
instructions many times in the Bible,
but I guess they never sunk in. Twice
when I first fell ill, I planned to have
my husband take me to a doctor in our
home town, but the car broke down each
time, although there was nothing the
matter with it all week. I have read and
studied your booklet ‘Does God Heal
Today’ many times, and shall continue
to do so until I can remember every
sentence in it.”

Woman from Portsmouth, N.H.

***

What a terrible, awful and shameful thing these false prophets, the 1% of this organization, did to their followers and people who were vulnerable to being mislead in this way. Their many false prophecies prove that God is not with them.

When I was based in California, I knew some of the people associated with the Loma Linda medical facility (Adventist). There were also some young guys from a local Adventist academy in our martial arts classes. You could also have mainstream conversations with them. Although they came to class on Friday nights, they sat in the stands and watched, in keeping with their belief in the sabbath. One of my life-long friends and his wife are SDA. None of these people seem weird or cultic. They have good values but do not go out of their way to make themselves off-putting and deliberately bizarre.

Obviously by the 1980s, the Adventist movement had had about 140 years to evolve past William Miller, but these people, these exemplars whom I knew and interacted with fairly extensively, just functioned as good citizens, and quietly kept their sabbath and didn't eat ceremonially forbidden meats. It was almost what one might witness if Catholics or Protestants kept the sabbath. No elitism. The ability to relate to one another, and to carry on normal one on one conversations was preserved.

Armstrongism, sometime in the late '70s or early '80s, began to get rid of a doctrine that obviously was not working. In ancient times, we can understand why God would not want His children to go to shamans who represented pagan religions (these were the only doctors around) for their healthcare needs. I guess a man who believed that Pauline Christians were "Christians falsely so-called" would have trouble with a healthcare system that had largely been underwritten by some of those same humanitarian Christians. The problem with his line of thinking is that the patients treated at St. Luke's, St. Joseph's, St. Jude's, Lutheran Hospital, or the many other religiously named institutions were not evangelized or expected to become members of some boogah boogah tribe, or the churches who had founded them as a condition for treatment.

This is part and parcel of the damage that can happen as a result of rejecting all outsiders and claiming that they are Satan's people, not part of "the truth". The WCG was what the insurance companies classify as being a sickly organization. People with mental health issues, and diseases were attracted to that organization in abnormal numbers because they expected to receive healing. So many suffered because HWA had largely faked the gift of healing, while using doctors himself. Imagine what might happen to the remains of the Armstrong empire if they can also transition beyond faking the gift of prophecy.

If You are new please read this

Hand in Hand for Syria

Keep Somalia's Remittances Open

I encourage readers to sign this petition from Oxfam calling upon the U.S. government to let the Somali diaspora continue to send remittance to their loved ones in Somalia.

Moves have been made to shut down such remittances from Somalis in America. Many Somalis need these remittances. The remittances to Somalia are larger than foreign aid contributions and are a lifeline to these people caught in trouble and turmoil.

It is true that HWA said that some Eastern European states would break away from Moscow's orbit and join the European Empire he said would arise at any moment. But he never talked of the Soviet Union collapsing. He did not teach that. Also he portrayed the rise of the European Empire to be far quicker then what has actually happened. In Mystery of the Ages Christ was supposed to return by 2005 at the most.

So assertions that the fall of the Berlin Wall somehow prove that HWA was right is just complete nonsense spread by people who, for whatever reason, are still in denial that HWA was a false prophet who merely talked out of his own "human reasoning".

Truth about Roderick C. Meredith

What sort of man is he? A man who could say things like this.

"Mr. Armstrong has reminded us again that we are to disfellowship any members who attend GTA's [Garner Ted Armstrong's] campaigns, church services or other meetings. Some of our weaker members apparently do not realize that this man is in direct rebellion against God and His government! We must not allow them, or ourselves, to rationalize about this matter, to try to "help the underdog," or in any other way lend support to one whose gross immorality, whose long standing "play acting" and hypocrisy, and whose direct insubordination to the Government of God has long been and is now a source of confusion and DIVISION among God's people. So, as per Mr. Armstrong's instruction, I charge and exhort every one of you faithful ministers of the living Christ to explain this in no uncertain terms to your members, to warn them about this cause of division and then to disfellowship any who consort with GTA or any of his fellows." (Roderick C. Meredith, Pastor's Report, May 21, 1979, pp. 1-2.)

David Robinson on Roderick C. Meredith

"During the ten years I have been an employee of the Worldwide Church, you have been poorly spoken of by most of the ministers and employees I have known. I vividly remember the absolute unbounded glee that was openly expressed by a good number of respected men in the church when you were first "shanghaied." [In 1972.] I could begin by naming names, which I am sure would shock you. I was one of the few who stood, where possible, for you. Your tenure as superintendent of ministers, as I believe the office was then called, was looked on as nightmarish. While you held office during the years of growth, most of those whom I know gave you very little credit for that growth. Almost everyone whom I know, whether they be former friends of yours, or continuing foes, recalls insensitive and terrible things you have done. Without exception, at least among my acquaintances, they all credit you with an unbridled lust for power and list you as one who is willing to pay the price of gaining that power, no matter what. I have, through many of the last few years, believed you had principles you would not violate. Many a man of experience in the church assured me of my error. Events have proven me wrong and them right. Mr. Armstrong has himself been widely quoted as saying of you that you were so righteous that you were so "righteous you were unrighteous." " (David Robinson, Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web, Chapter 16, p. 207.)

Of course it is impossible for me to personally verify these assertions but people deserve to know what this knowledgeable man had to say about him.